As the members of a typical household have become busier and busier, the amount of time that persons have to devote to laundering clothing has decreased. The decrease in time available for doing the laundry has unfortunately not been accompanied by a decrease in the number of clothing articles worn by a typical person in a fixed period of time, for example, a week. With the advent of specialized clothing articles for different activities, for example cycling, golf, yoga, aerobics, zumba, kickboxing, martial arts, and running, the number of clothing articles worn by a person in a week has increased. Thus, consumers are interested in ways to quickly refresh clothing that is not heavily soiled or malodorous, without having to pass the article of clothing through a laundry washing machine and dryer. Further, consumers are interested in ways to avoid subjecting expensive clothing to the rough conditions found in a washing machine.
Current ways to quickly refresh clothing are thought to be able to reduce odors and wrinkles in previously worn clothing articles. For instance, fabric refreshing cabinets that apply steam or a mist of water to one or more garments contained therein and then dry the garments within the cabinet have been developed. Although these devices are described to provide freshening and dewrinkling benefits, it has been found that the devices do not provide sufficiently crisp appearance and feel within a limited amount of time and energy use.
Steam based devices for treating fabrics typically heat a volume of water to boiling point, thereby generating steam. Heating the water to boiling point requires a considerable amount of energy and heat. Further, the heating device used by the apparatus requires a certain amount of time to reach the temperature required to heat the water to boiling temperature. Typically, the device does not activate the heating element until the user inserts clothing and turns the device on. This process typically takes a long time to run and complete the treatment cycle. Consumers have been found to desire the treatment to be completed in a short amount of time such that the fabrics can be treated within the amount of time it would typically take a consumer to conduct his or her hygiene and beauty routines.
Another type of fabric treating device is one that distributes fluids, such as water and/or chemical compositions, onto the fabrics by misting within the device or distributing the fluid directly onto the fabrics through ultrasonic nebulizers. In a typical embodiment, a device is provided that has a large reservoir to hold a volume of chemical composition sufficient to treat multiple garments over many uses.
Providing the consumer the opportunity to store a large volume of chemical composition with the device can be practical since the consumer will have to open the reservoir on the device, for instance by disengaging a threaded cap, then open the container that was purchased in a store, and then pour the chemical composition from the container purchased from the store, and then reclose the reservoir on the device, and then reclose or dispose of the container that was purchased from the store. It is thought that by providing a reservoir that can contain a large volume of chemical composition it is convenient to the user since she will only infrequently need to add chemical composition to the device.
One problem with the approach of providing a large reservoir with the device is that the user has little flexibility to choose different chemical compositions for different articles of clothing. For instance, the chemical composition that performs best when dewrinkling or crisping a wool suit may be quite different from a chemical composition that is particularly designed for athletic wear due to the nature of the different types of fibers found in each article of clothing.
Another problem with the approach of providing a large reservoir with the device is that the user has little flexibility to choose different scents for different articles of clothing or even the same type of clothing. It is thought that by repeated exposure to a particular scent, the person smelling such scent can become desensitized to such scent and derive little pleasure from retrieving a refreshed garment from the device and wearing the article. Further, different scents may be desired for different circumstances, for example a business day or an evening social engagement.
With these limitations in mind, there is a continuing unaddressed need for a single use container for a fabric treatment composition that can be individually inserted into a fabric refreshing device to dose the fabric treatment composition.